The arm or elbow injury most commonly referred to as "tennis elbow" is becoming increasingly commonplace with the recent upsurge in the popularity of tennis. Although the cause of such injury is not completely understood, it is fairly certain that the repeated impacts caused by the ball upon the racket and transmitted to the arm of the player is a basic cause of such injury. The symptoms normally include pain in the area of the elbow apparently caused by inflamation of the ligiments that serve to connect the two bones of the forearm, i.e., the radius and the ulnar, to the two spurs at the end of the humerus bone of the upper arm, that is, the medial and lateral condyles thereof. Other than rest or exercise to strengthen the arm muscles, tennis elbow is most normally treated by antiinflamatory drugs including aspirin, injection treatments of cortisone or even surgery to release the tension of the arm's tendons upon the aforementioned epicondyles. It would accordingly be desirable to eliminate or at least reduce the frequency of this injury. Also due to the persistance of players having tennis elbow to continue to play, it is particularly important that the effects thereof be minimized or prevented and it is to this end that the device of the present invention is directed.
The present inventor has accordingly determined that the effects of tennis elbow are moderated and in many cases prevented by the application of pressure to those portions of a tennis player's arm directly overlying the medial and lateral epicondyles. Such action apparently prevents or reduces the pulling action of the tendon connections with these bone spurs in such a manner that the inflamation thereof, which in turn causes the painful symptoms of tennis elbow, are reduced. Furthermore, by restricting the extremes of pronation and supination of the forearm and wrist which normally contribute to tendon extension, inflamation, and related tennis elbow symptoms are further reduced.